News from the Bellbrook High School newspaper class

Chimes and Times Out of Sync; Ghost Bells Perplex Tech

By: Kayla Stephensen

This past summer, the district school phone system “died,” taking with it the clocks synced with the bells at Bellbrook High School. For the past several weeks, the bells have been chaotic due to lack of synchronization.

Under the old system, all three were linked. The bells would ring when the clocks turned to the same time. Even though the clock ended up two minutes behind satellite time, at least they lined up. Mr. Hann, assistant principal covering juniors and seniors, explains the new system, “Supposedly in the future I should be able to just go on the internet and type in the schedule, but right now if I want to change the bells, I have to contact our tech people in the other building who then call on our company and then they put it in.” Unfortunately, most of the bells have been ringing one and a half to two minutes before the scheduled end of class and on days with special schedules, such as two-hour delays and early dismissals, sometimes they don’t ring at all. This is the first step to sync the chimes and times.

The old system may have stopped working, but according to Mr. Hann occasionally there are “ghost bells.” Some of the old Westminster chimes from the old system are still playing. When the new tech people came in to see the old system and figure it out, they didn’t know how to get rid of them. Last Wednesday October 18, they weren’t heard all day and since then it seems the ghost bells have disappeared, but the old system tends to be full of surprises.

Once the new system is up to date and running correctly, the administration should be able to choose the type of bell for announcements and warning chimes as well as finally get back to playing music Friday mornings. They are trying to be hopeful but realistically have no idea when it will all happen. “I’m sure that was as clear as mud,” remarks Mr. Hann as he tries to explain the predicament.